The Eulenburg scandal was a catalyst for transforming popular views of the Kaiser and the monarchy. The trials sparked by Harden’s brazen accusations discredited not only the Hohenzollern dynasty but also the Prussian aristocracy and officer corps. At least one historian has compared the affair to the loss of legitimacy suffered by the Bourbons and Louis XVI on the eve of the French Revolution in 1789.10 By exploiting allegations of sexual impropriety, Harden helped to create a powerful dynamic that combined an exuberant popular medium—the German daily and political press—with the new sexology of naming homosexuality. As journalist Frederic William Wile—Berlin correspondent for the London Daily Mail and the New York Times—wrote in 1914, “[T]he upheaval caused by Harden’s revelations was the most stirring victory wrought in the name of public opinion which Modern Germany has yet witnessed.”11 Indeed, journalism at the turn of the twentieth century had become a political tool, which could also be used to “out” prominent figures. The Berliner Tageblatt alone—just one of more than twenty-five Berlin dailies—published more than 150 articles about the Eulenburg scandal in the two-year period before May 1909. The Ministry of Justice collected and preserved more than nine hundred German press clippings devoted to the trials.12 Press coverage outside Germany was no less extravagant: over fifty journalists from France, Sweden, Russia, England, and the Netherlands were present when Eulenburg’s trial for perjury opened in the spring of 1908.13 More than any single event or publication, the Eulenburg scandal broadcast and popularized the notion of a homosexual identity. The panorama of Berlin’s gay life publicized by Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlins drittes Geschlecht (Berlin’s third sex) in 1904 or by Hans Ostwald’s Männliche Prostitution im kaiserlichen Berlin (Male prostitution in imperial Berlin) in 1906 was now confirmed and given broader exposure by a drumbeat of trial reports in the German and European press.
Born Felix Ernst Witkowski, Maximilian Harden personified the striking contradictions of fin-de-siècle Berlin. As the child of so-called getaufte Juden—“baptized Jews”—Harden adopted his new name when embarking on a short-lived career as a stage actor. By the early 1890s, however, Harden had turned to journalism, and in 1892 he began publication of his independent news magazine, Die Zukunft, which he produced weekly for more than thirty years (until 1923). Despite subtle and sometimes virulent anti-Semitism, Harden made a brilliant career for himself in the Berlin metropolis. His independent periodical gained him admiration, and notoriety, and he quickly moved in an elite stratum of Berlin literati, publishers, and artists, as well as politicians and statesmen. Harden made Bismarck’s acquaintance soon after the chancellor’s “retirement,” and cultivated the relationship until Bismarck’s death in 1898. Assimilating Bismarck’s Realpolitik, as well as his critique of the new Kaiser and his government, Harden became an ardent German nationalist, a monarchist, and a vigorous critic of William II. Bismarck also shaped Harden’s early suspicion of Eulenburg, whose activities Harden monitored in the pages of Die Zukunft beginning in the 1890s.14 Harden’s precise motivations for attacking Eulenburg are often debated, though anti-homosexual animus does not seem to figure among them. Despite his hawkish foreign policy views, Harden was never socially conservative, and he supported the legal reform of Paragraph 175.15
Although Harden acted independently, he became an ally and accomplice of Eulenburg’s other enemies. In January 1906 German foreign minister Friedrich von Holstein hatched a plot to force Eulenburg to leave Berlin and remove himself from the Kaiser’s social orbit, a plan he reported in a letter to the German ambassador in Paris, Prince Radolin. Holstein plotted with Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow, and the two together hoped to undermine Eulenburg and the French ambassador Lecomte by launching “a sensational campaign of scandal in the press” based on accusations of “pederasty.” Holstein also identified Harden as the journalist who could disseminate the charges and bring Eulenburg down.16 Using perceived sexual impropriety for political ends was not unprecedented. But the proposed cooperation of Holstein and Harden represented an innovation in imperial Germany. The authority and influence of the popular press—and of public intellectuals such as Harden—and the susceptibility of the ruling emperor to public opinion signaled the growing significance of the so-called fourth estate. The press, as Holstein recognized, had become a powerful tool of influence and manipulation.
The insulting notes that Harden published in November, following the emperor’s hunting excursion at Liebenberg, were cryptic and went largely unnoticed. Die Zukunft held an important place among the organs of Berlin’s political press, however, and was read closely by the political cognoscenti. Eulenburg, for one, took notice and dispatched an intermediary to negotiate with Harden, whose only demand was that Eulenburg leave the German capital permanently. Harden’s coercion was successful, initially, and the Kaiser’s friend decamped to a Swiss spa resort, supposedly for health reasons. Earlier in 1906, however, William II had nominated Eulenburg to the Order of the Black Eagle, one of the most prestigious Prussian fraternities, and Eulenburg could not resist attending a showy investiture ceremony in January of 1907.17
When Harden learned of Eulenburg’s return to Berlin, he recommenced with his campaign. On April 13 the journalist published an incendiary editorial whose message was unambiguous. “Look at this Roundtable,” Harden quipped. “They don’t dream of conflagrations [Weltbrände]; for them it’s already warm enough.” This double entendre, based on the German slang for homosexual, “warm,” explained the pacifism of Eulenburg and his friends as the effect of their “queerness.”18 Two weeks later Harden went a step further, calling attention to the recent disclosure of the homosexuality of Prince Friedrich Heinrich, the Kaiser’s cousin. “Because of his inherited sexual perversion,” Harden wrote, “the Prince was forced to relinquish leadership of the Order of St. John” (another prestigious Prussian association).19 It was rumored, in fact, that William II had recently banished his cousin from the Berlin court for “immorality.” According to Commissioner Tresckow, Prince Frederick Heinrich’s particular kink was to prostitute himself in Tiergarten Park disguised as a groom.20 “Does the chapter of the Black Eagle deserve a milder assessment?” Harden asked, alluding directly to Eulenburg: “There is at least one member whose vita sexualis is no healthier than that of the banned Prince.”21
The Kaiser was unaware of Harden’s slander, however, since his own reading was limited to a conservative Berlin daily, Der Tagesspiegel. Neither cabinet ministers nor close advisers had the moxie to inform their sovereign, moreover, and Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm finally showed his father the offensive materials at the beginning of May. The revelation incensed the Kaiser, who condemned both Eulenburg and Moltke for not confronting Harden sooner. On May 3 Moltke tendered his resignation as city commander. From Eulenburg, William demanded accountability: “If the charges of perverse tendencies are untrue and his conscience is completely free and clear, he must make an unambiguous declaration to me and then confront Harden. Otherwise I expect him to return the Black Eagle decoration and go immediately into foreign exile.”22 A confrontation with Harden might take one of two courses: either dueling (which had been criminalized after German unification) or some sort of legal challenge. Eulenburg took the second route and cleverly denounced himself for violating Paragraph 175 in the sympathetic jurisdiction of his Liebenberg estate. After a cursory investigation and a very short trial, the presiding district attorney determined that there was no evidence of his friend’s—that is, Eulenburg’s—guilt. Moltke pursued a different strategy, first challenging Harden to a duel, which the journalist declined, and then bringing suit for libel.23
The first Moltke-Harden libel trial found a raucous public reception, opening on October 23, 1907, in the Berlin courthouse of Moabit. Since Moltke’s resignation as city commander in May, Berlin’s daily press had published regular reports on Harden, Eulenburg, and Moltke. Outside the courthouse, crowds identified and then greeted or jeered the protagonists as they entered and left the proceedings.
24 The crush of both German and foreign journalists was nearly overwhelming, and press tickets for the courtroom became difficult to procure. As the prominent Vossische Zeitung reported, “Morning trial Moltke-Harden, evenings Caruso. And everyone expects a celebration [Fest]. The demand for admission tickets for the drama in Moabit, whose outcome cannot be predicted—tragedy or comedy?—is no less than that for the first appearance of the king of tenors [Caruso] in the Berlin Opera House.”25
Moltke’s libel suit turned on the claim that Harden had stated falsely that he was homosexual. To defend against this charge Harden and his lawyers needed to demonstrate, presumably, that Moltke had indeed engaged in some homosexual activity. The journalist took a different and ingenious tack, however, and undermined Moltke’s accusation by qualifying his own alleged slander. Instead of providing convincing evidence that Moltke had perhaps been in a homosexual relationship or patronized a male hustler, the defense attempted instead to convince the judge and jurors that Moltke had a homosexual “orientation.” On the stand Harden argued that his essays never mentioned specific homosexual practices: “I never asserted that Count Moltke was guilty of any punishable sexual acts. We [the defense] simply intend to prove that the General belongs to a circle of friends in which different stages of homosexuality are represented. I am convinced and can prove that Moltke has abnormal sexual feelings.”26
The first step of Harden’s strategy was to explore Moltke’s relationship with his ex-wife, Lilly von Elbe—based on her testimony—and prove Moltke’s aversion to the “fairer sex.” Moltke had married the beautiful young widow in 1896 in a ceremony for which the Kaiser himself had served as a witness. The couple divorced in 1899, though the marriage ended long before that and was likely never consummated. Harden had learned of the divorce directly from Lilly, who provided him with sensitive materials from the proceedings in 1902.27 Moltke’s apparent mistreatment of his young wife had motivated Lilly, who attended the trial accompanied by her son (from her first marriage) and her third husband.28
Lilly testified that the failure of her second marriage was caused in part by Moltke’s friendship with Eulenburg. In 1895 Eulenburg was invested as German ambassador in Vienna, and soon after his appointment he managed to have Moltke assigned as his personal aide, a military attaché in the embassy. The men schemed to leave Lilly in Berlin after the wedding, though she rejected such a separation from her new husband and followed with her young son. Although the newlyweds shared an apartment, Moltke refused to sleep with Lilly and took up quarters in the embassy. When questioned by Lilly, Moltke replied, “[M]y friend Graf Eulenburg wishes it so.” Lilly then confronted Eulenburg, who responded, according to Lilly, “[S]et my friend free, give my friend back to me.” Moltke was also given to expressing the crudest misogyny. On one occasion, Lilly claimed, her husband had told her, “I don’t find you revolting as a human being, but rather as a woman.” Lilly’s son, Wolf von Kruse, now a young man and army lieutenant, also testified and described a particularly memorable scene. Once, after discovering that Eulenburg had left a handkerchief in the Moltkes’ apartment, Kuno, in the presence of his stepson, pressed it “passionately” to his lips, uttering, “[M]y soul, my love!”29
Whether the relationship between Moltke and Eulenburg was ever sexual remained moot; what Harden hoped to establish instead was Moltke’s inborn sexual orientation. “I differentiate,” Harden explained, “following the best science, between abnormal feelings and homosexual tendencies. There is a great distinction whether the orientation is so advanced that it tends to unnatural activities, or whether the affected person only has abnormal feelings, unhealthy feelings that run counter to normality. If I claim that one has such an inner emotional orientation, I do not mean that this sensuality is ever outwardly manifested.” It was Moltke’s orientation, then, that was homosexual—not necessarily his sexual practices—and this was all that Harden claimed to have implied in his Zukunft articles.30
This “science” of sexuality had been developed and popularized by Magnus Hirschfeld, so Harden enlisted the sexologist to provide expert testimony. On the stand, Hirschfeld drew a subtle yet sharp distinction between “friendship” and “love.” “We understand the homosexual,” Hirschfeld opined, “to be someone who feels a genuine love attraction for someone of the same sex. Whether that person engages in homosexual behaviors is irrelevant from a scientific perspective. Just as some heterosexuals live celibate lives, so too can homosexuals express their love in an idealized, platonic manner.” Hirschfeld’s assessment of Moltke specifically was that the general displayed an “unconscious homosexuality.”31
Hirschfeld and Lilly von Elbe carried the day, and on October 29 the trial concluded with Harden’s acquittal. The judge declared, “The assumption is correct: He has an aversion to the female sex, he has an attraction to the male sex, and he has certain feminine features. These are all characteristics of homosexuality…. It must be emphasized here that no one has claimed that Count Moltke is guilty of any homosexual activity. It is viewed only as established: he is homosexual and has not been able to disguise this orientation in the presence of others.”32 The decision was remarkable considering Moltke’s social position, and the repercussions were profound. For one, the Kaiser suffered a nervous breakdown. Two days later the Prussian attorney general declared Harden’s exoneration a matter of “public interest” and announced an appeal, this time supported by the Prussian state.33
Only days after the Moltke-Harden contretemps was declared a matter of “public interest,” requiring an appeal and retrial, Chancellor Bülow brought charges of libel against the firebrand publisher and homosexual rights activist Adolf Brand. In September 1907 Brand had published a special issue of his journal (Die Gemeinschaft der Eigenen) titled “Prince Bülow and the Repeal of Paragraph 175.” Clearly inspired by Harden’s attack on Moltke and Eulenburg, Brand claimed that Bülow, an opponent of Eulenburg, was himself homosexual and that he shared an apartment with his lover, who was also his private secretary. Brand also implied that Bülow’s nephew, a Prussian diplomat, likewise named Bernhard, had a sexual relationship with Eulenburg’s son-in-law Edmund Jarolymek. These relationships had been open secrets, Brand asserted, at least among members of the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee.34
Brand craved the attention that Harden had garnered with his comments in Zukunft. Hirschfeld’s expert assessment that Moltke was “unconsciously” homosexual was especially irksome to Brand, since it profiled Hirschfeld’s sexology and his medical diagnosis. In the pamphlet, Brand condemned Hirschfeld for labeling Moltke while failing to mention Bülow as well. Certainly, Brand envied Hirschfeld’s public recognition as an expert. But he also resented the inconsistency and apparent hypocrisy of Hirschfeld’s position. Recall that Brand and Hirschfeld had quarreled before over the tactic of outing prominent figures. While Brand agitated for ruthless disclosure, Hirschfeld and his colleagues in the SHC had argued for the rights of individual privacy. “Dr. Hirschfeld, the supposed protector of homosexuals,” Brand claimed, “disclosed the homosexuality of Bülow’s opponents, despite his earlier position, but neglected then to expose Bülow as well.” The implication, of course, was that Brand himself was the more stalwart defender of those persecuted under Paragraph 175. In Brand’s estimation, Hirschfeld allowed politics and the vanity of his own pseudoscience to trump the cause of emancipation. If Hirschfeld genuinely embraced Brand’s strategy of liberation “over corpses”—a campaign to out prominent figures, such as Georg Dasbach—then he should have exposed Bülow as well. Brand hoped to redress this oversight with his pamphlet, and expected in doing so to hasten the repeal of the anti-sodomy statute.35
Brand’s trial for libel opened on November 6, barely a week after Harden’s acquittal. Harden’s success bolstered Brand’s hope that his campaign would promote the acceptance of his own model of homoerotic friendship. At trial, he opined that same-sex love is simply the “ideal, emotional attraction of one friend to another friend.” He explained
, “I described the Reichskanzler as homosexual in my article. But in doing so I have not reproached him. Since I strive for the elimination of Paragraph 175 and for the social rebirth of friend-love, the last thing I wanted was to insult Prince Bülow by revealing his homosexual proclivities.”36 Brand clearly distanced himself from Hirschfeld’s sexology, and suggested a motivation that was dramatically different from Harden’s. Homoerotic “friend-love” was shared by many, he believed, including Bülow, Moltke, and Eulenburg. His purpose in revealing the “friend-love” of political elites, therefore, was to promote understanding, empathy, and ultimately legal reform.
Despite his optimism, Brand was found guilty and given an eighteen-month prison sentence, an outcome that Brand blamed on Hirschfeld. For one thing, Hirschfeld, when called to testify as an expert witness, denied having heard rumors that Bülow was homosexual and claimed to be unable to ascertain such an orientation in the chancellor, whether conscious or not. Brand believed he had been abandoned by one of his “co-conspirators,” Count Günther von der Schulenburg, who had promised to provide Brand with evidence that would compromise Bülow. Not only did Schulenburg fail to produce the promised materials, but he also fled Germany for the duration of the trial to avoid a subpoena. Brand later claimed that Hirschfeld himself had provided Schulenburg with the materials documenting Bülow’s homosexuality. But after Bülow brought Brand to trial, Hirschfeld—according to Brand—refused Schulenberg the incriminating evidence that would have substantiated Brand’s claims and thus allowed Brand to suffer the consequences of a guilty verdict. Brand’s ultimate downfall was the testimony given by Bülow himself and by a number of his closest friends and colleagues, including Eulenburg.37
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